There are grave concerns over the state of Crooked Island, with Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade appealing for airlift for “evacuated” residents he said needed to leave for Nassau by sunset yesterday. Greenslade tweeted a photo of residents at the airport at Colonial Hill who were “waiting for assistance to be taken to Nassau”.

A defense force marine on the ground told The Nassau Guardian yesterday that there was no evacuation order for the island, but he said some residents were leaving.

When The Guardian visited the island yesterday, much of it was unlivable. It looked like a war zone.

British marines from a navy ship called the Lymbay had just offloaded several cases of water at the local marina. Marines were on the ground assisting residents, moving supplies and trying to clear a path to the community. The marines were scheduled to leave for Long Island today.

In Nassau last night, Andreshia McKinney, who has family in Crooked Island and who visited the island yesterday, was with a group of people she said were “evacuated”. She said some were flown to Nassau on a police plane and others were flown in on a plane used by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to deliver supplies. But McKinney said the group of about 20 residents, most of them small children, was being housed at a motel on Market Street in conditions that were worse than where they came from. She said the Department of Social Services made arrangements for the accommodations.

Late last night, McKinney said someone from NEMA promised to relocate the Crooked Islanders. Yesterday, The Nassau Guardian visited Landrail Point where many residents have nothing of value left. There is no road from the Pitts Town airport into Landrail Point. Residents are forced to walk along the shoreline or hope someone with a four-wheel drive buggy gives them a ride.

Hylene Moss, a resident of the community, said some people are leaving the island because there is nothing left. For now, she said she’s in no hurry to leave just yet.

“I will, but I am in no rush to leave,” Moss said. “People are leaving to go to Nassau, but where will I go? This is my home. I have a relative I can stay with in Nassau, but this is home.”

Moss was taking stock of relief supplies at the local clinic. The clinic itself was the only structure in immediate sight that survived the storm. A 30-foot telecommunications pole lay across its front lawn. Someone placed clothes and a few pairs of shoes to dry out on the pole.

The island has no cell or landline service and no power. The only mode of communication is through the much valued satellite phones. Michael Carroll, a local fisherman and owner of a grocery store on the island, said he lost everything. His wife, Beulah Carroll, is the island nurse and is manning the clinic. Carroll said that is the only reason he hasn’t left yet.

“The people are leaving here because there is nothing left,” he said.

In its current state, Carroll said, no tourist would want to come down to Crooked Island. He said all of the local hotels were destroyed.

Exposed

Carroll and 12 people spent 19 hours huddled in two boats during Hurricane Joaquin. He said residents had no time to prepare for Joaquin.

“By the time I went outside it was so bad I couldn’t do anything anyway,” he said. “Around noon on Thursday, we saw it started to clear up a bit. So our neighbor said he wanted to come over.

“I told him we had some water in the house but he said that was okay; he’d rather ride it out with us. So around 5 p.m. it started again.

“I was in my bedroom trying to get a piece of sleep because I didn’t really sleep and I woke up and looked at my ceiling and it was wet. I saw water started to drip down. Then the sides of the ceiling started leaking water. Then I heard my wife say water was coming up through the bathtub and the toilet.

“The next thing I know the water was ankle deep. I thought maybe a pipe had burst or something. My brother-in-law looked outside and said it looked like the storm was back. So I told him, ‘Let’s try and sweep some of this water out’. I told him to open the front door but he said he couldn’t get it open.

“I thought something had blown down in front of it and was blocking the door. So I went to help him but it wouldn’t budge. At this point it was dark outside. I asked my wife to take a flashlight and look outside. She said when she looked the water was right by the windowsill. That’s when we started to panic.

“Now my boat was right next to the house and I said we need to get on that. I jumped through the window into the water. It was about waist deep. I tried to detach the boat from my trailer but it wouldn’t budget.

“During all that I was having a hard time in the water because I was facing 200 mile per hour winds and the water just started pouring in. I saw water everywhere, surging. Eventually I got the boat loose and I got everyone in it. Then my brother-in-law’s boat started to drift so I had to get that too and we put some people on it.

“I dropped the engine a little and I tied the boats up to the two posts in the front of my house. We were in the boats for 19 hours, exposed to the storm.

“It was wet, it was raining and I was worried that the children with us might get hypothermia. We watched the tide rise until it was about as high as the ceiling in my house, then we watched it fall. Eventually we made it to the clinic and we’ve been using it as a makeshift shelter since then.”

Carroll said 40 people are using the shelter.

He said he lost most of the items in his shop, which is just a few feet from his home.

“The water rose to the ceiling there too,” he said. “We tried to salvage a few things, but that’s finished.”

Thankful

Pastor Howard Barr said he is thankful to be alive.

“I spent 15 hours in the roof of my house,” he said. “I fled there after the water started rising in my house. It was something. I had 12 of my relatives in the roof including my wife and a few children. We rode out the storm in the roof of my house.

“If we didn’t go up there we’d be dead. I saw death.

“We climbed down once the water started receding, but as you can see a lot of people are leaving the island. My wife and I have been sleeping on someone’s floor or on the sofa, wherever we can.”

Barr said he lost everything. He said he’s drying out a few clothes, but his home is gone.

When The Guardian arrived at the clinic, lunch was being served. Once much needed supplies had been stored, everyone gathered outside, sat down and had a hot meal. Someone brought a generator at the clinic.

During lunch, some residents argued over the government’s response to the storm. Others ate in silence, staring at a fallen power line, or the house across the street that had lost its roof, front door and windows. Most, if not all, of the homes in Landrail Point were destroyed, either from severe flooding or structural damage. The local Seventh Day Adventist Church looked like a skeleton.

Moss said when the storm was beating down, she prayed to God.

“I said, ‘Please don’t forget us. Don’t do this to your children, God. Don’t do this to your children.”

Moss said she believes the storm brought at least 200 mile per hour winds.

“I heard the roof start to pop. It sounded like popcorn,” she said.

“I heard bam, bam, bam.

“Then the door started rattling like it was going to come off.

“So I said to my husband ‘we have to go’.

“So we went to the truck but the wind was blowing so hard that we had to creep, you know. We had to crawl on the ground. We got in the truck but the wind was blowing so hard we couldn’t get the door closed. Then when my husband tried to start the truck, it wouldn’t start.

“We had to creep back to our house and I had to call someone to come get us. This has just been devastating. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian